Patrick J. Ryan: 1925 - 2007

Army stint led entrepreneur to electronics

In retirement, World War II veteran shared experiences with Palatine students

November 01, 2007|By Graydon Megan, Special to the Tribune

Patrick J. Ryan was an entrepreneur who built on sales skills learned during the Depression and in the U.S. Army to found several companies in the electronics industry.

After serving in World War II as a tank commander, he briefly left the service, but soon re-enlisted. "He got involved in the Signal Corps," said daughter Patricia Ryan. "He worked with radar and communications for about three years. That provided the knowledge base for his career in electronics."

Mr. Ryan, 82, died of kidney failure Monday, Oct. 22, in his Palatine home. He and his wife, Janet, who survives him, lived there for more than 40 years.

Mr. Ryan grew up in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, where he sold newspapers as a teenager, contributing what he earned to help his family through the Depression. Family members said he never attended high school, but worked during those years, including on farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He also spent a summer working on an ore boat.

Mr. Ryan lied about his age to enlist in the Army at 16, family members said. As commander of a light tank with the 3rd Armored Division, he served in North Africa before participating in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944.

"He landed at Omaha Beach," said his daughter, Catherine Kleinschmidt, but the boat's landing craft carrying his tank unit stopped far short of the beach. "He lost his first tank there in about 28 feet of water." Only nine of the 35 tanks in his group made it to the beach.

After helping to liberate German concentration camps, Mr. Ryan returned to the U.S. and left the service briefly before re-enlisting in the Signal Corps in Ft. Monmouth, N.J.

While there, he met Janet Spooner at a dance, and they married in 1949. The couple soon settled in Chicago, where Mr. Ryan found a job in the electronics industry.

Mr. Ryan founded Ryan & Associates, the first of several Chicago-based companies representing manufacturers of electronic components or distributing their products. His next company was Quadtron & Associates, begun in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, Quadtron was succeeded by Electrix, a distributor of strain gauges and stress-analysis equipment used to ensure the safety of bridges and other engineered structures.

"He felt that he didn't sell a product so much as get it engineered into someone else's product," said his wife.

Family members said Mr. Ryan also had a business called Technical Tips that organized table-top trade shows at hotels around the Midwest in the 1960s and 1970s.

The shows offered other manufacturers' representatives the chance to introduce their electronic components to potential local customers.

"I don't know if he invented the table-top show, but he could have," said Patricia Ryan .

Mr. Ryan retired about 1990 because of health problems. His son ran the company briefly, but it is no longer open. Within a few years, he began volunteering at Jane Addams School in Palatine. "He's been a volunteer here for 14 years," said Principal Roland Johnson. Johnson said Mr. Ryan helped teachers and staff in many ways, but his specialty was talking with students on Veterans Day every year.

Mr. Ryan would visit classrooms and talk about democracy and freedom and answer questions about his war experiences.

Mr. Ryan was a life member of the Association of the 3rd Armored Division and a longtime American Legion member. "It was important to him to keep in contact with his old buddies," his wife said.